SEE how the archèd earth does hereRise in a perfect hemisphere !The stiffest compass could not strikeA line more circular and like,Nor softest pencil draw a browSo equal as this hill does bow ;It seems as for a model laid,And that the world by it was made.Here learn, ye mountains more unjust,Which to abrupter greatness thrust,That do, with your hook-shouldered height,The earth deform, and heaven fright,For whose excrescence, ill designed,Nature must a new centre find,Learn here those humble steps to tread,Which to securer glory lead.See what a soft access, and wide,Lies open to its grassy side,Nor with the rugged path detersThe feet of breathless travellers ;See then how courteous it ascends,And all the way it rises, bends,Nor for itself the height does gain,But only strives to raise the plain ;Yet thus it all the field commands,And in unenvied greatness stands,Discerning further than the cliffOf heaven-daring Teneriff.How glad the weary seamen haste,When they salute it from the mast !By night, the northern star their wayDirects, and this no less by day.Upon its crest, this mountain grave,A plume of agèd trees does wave.No hostile hand durst e'er invade,With impious steel, the sacred shade ;For something always did appearOf the GREAT MASTER'S terror there,And men could hear his armour still,Rattling through all the grove and hill.Fear of the MASTER, and respectOf the great nymph, did it protect ;VERA, the nymph, that him inspired,To whom he often here retired,And on these oaks ingraved her name,Such wounds alone these woods became ;But ere he well the barks could part,'Twas writ already in their heart ;For they, 'tis credible, have sense,As we, of love and reverence,And underneath the coarser rindThe genius of the house do bind.Hence they successes seem to know,And in their Lord's advancement grow ;But in no memory were seen,As under this, so straight and green ;Yet now no farther strive to shoot,Contented, if they fix their root,Nor to the wind's uncertain gustTheir prudent heads too far entrust.Only sometimes a fluttering breezeDiscourses with the breathing trees,Which in their modest whispers nameThose acts that swelled the cheeks of Fame. Much other groves, say they,  than these,And other hills, him once did please.Through groves of pikes he thundered then,And mountains raised of dying men.For all the civic garlands dueTo him, our branches are but few ;Nor are our trunks enough to bearThe trophies of one fertile year.'Tis true, ye trees, nor ever spokeMore certain oracles in oak ;But peace, if you his favour prize !That courage its own praises flies :Therefore to your obscurer seatsFrom his own brightness he retreats ;Nor he the hills, without the groves,Nor height, but with retirement, loves.